A spiritual response to bullying: at school, at work, in the home
Evan Mehlenbacher
Six out of ten American teens witness bullying at least once a day. Nearly a quarter of all students face harassment. And many adults regularly encounter verbal and physical violence at work and in the home.
In this Q&A chat, Christian Science teacher and practitioner Evan Mehlenbacher discusses how God's reflection is incapable of being either bully or victim, and answers questions from site visitors on dealing with hostile behavior at school and in the office; the blessings of forgiveness; and the importance of the Golden Rule.
spirituality.com host: Hello, everyone! Welcome to another spirituality.com live question and answer audio event. Our topic is “A spiritual response to bullying: at home, at school, and at work.” Our guest is Evan Mehlenbacher, who has been healing people through the practice of Christian Science for over 18 years. He’s also a teacher of Christian Science, and has given more than 500 public talks on Christian Science throughout North America and other parts of the world.
Evan, bullying is a broad subject, and I’m wondering if you would be willing to tell us how you’re thinking about it.
Evan: When I was a grade school student, I had a long bus ride back and forth from school, about 40 minutes each way. And invariably I had a classmate who would sit behind me on the bus. He would pester me all the way to school and all the way back home again. He’d be flicking my ears or pulling my hair or yanking on my collar—anything to get my attention and hopefully aggravate me.
Well, I was rather a passive, quiet little boy, and, honestly, it didn’t really get to me too much. I just learned to put up with it.
Well, one day, though, I happened to sit behind him. And this had been after weeks and months of his sitting behind me, pestering me. I thought, Oh, this is my chance to get him back and show him what it’s like. So I reached up, and I flicked him in the ear one time, just to show him what he’d been doing to me hundreds of times.
Well, he gets up in his seat, he turns around, and he smacks me in the nose with his fist, and turns me into a horrendous bloody mess. I was so intimidated. I couldn’t believe he did that. I thought that was a bit of overreaction...
spirituality.com host: Well, I think so, yeah!
Evan: … considering what he had been doing to me for months. But honestly, I didn’t know how to deal with it. And at the time, I didn’t realize it—now I do—but he was a bully. And he was bullying me. And I needed to learn how to deal with it better.
Well, a lot of years have passed since then, and I’ve learned how to deal with bullies. I’ve learned a lot of spiritual lessons. And one of them is that love is a power that can transform an ugly situation to a better situation. It can not only protect us from being abused by the bully thought, it can also liberate the bully from the thoughts that cause them to act that way in the first place.
And that’s what I’d like to chat with you all about today, How can we take a spiritual approach to dealing with the bully thought and also freeing ourselves from the temptation to be that way, if that’s the side of the argument that we’re standing on?
spirituality.com host: Do you have any particular definition of bullying that you’d like to talk about before we get started?
Evan: I do. I think this was quite an eye-opener for me, as I researched different experts’ definitions of what bullying is. And I’d say it all could be summed up very simply. It’s hostile behavior intended to harm others.
spirituality.com host: Wow!
Evan: Yeah. And it’s usually conscious, willful, deliberate, and typically, repeated. But it’s not just anger. Bullying is not about anger. People can get angry and not be bullies.
The difference is a bully intends to do some harm to others. And it may be what we’d call just a little bitty harm, but it also may be very large and aggressive. Some of the different forms that bullying can take—for example, name calling, spreading gossip, or rumors about people. It could be making faces, it could be obscene gestures. A little more aggressive—on the level of verbal abuse, malicious teasing, or threats.
It could be physical in the form of hitting, kicking, pushing, choking, to get our way or to get someone to submit to our will. It could be less obvious, such as excluding someone from a group that they would otherwise be a member of.
In the workplace, it could be sexual harassment or just workplace harassment. In relationships, it could be a form of date or marital violence, child abuse. On a larger scale it could be the use of physical force in the form of war, terrorism. In the community, it could be gang attacks.
And they even have what’s called cyber bullying now, where, through the use of e-mail, slandering people, spreading malicious rumors, or just spamming you with a huge amount of overload e-mails. It takes many different forms.
But the bottom line is the bully is striving for power and control over a situation, and they work through fear and manipulation. They usually have no remorse about what they’re doing and show little sympathy.
The good thing is, it’s not normal behavior. This is not the way God created any of us. No one was born a bully. And that’s what we need to remember today. That’s why we can be healed of bullying and its effects, because it’s not ingrained into anyone’s behavior to be that way.
And so healing is possible. We can experience a transformation of character there and bring out more of the loving child of God that was put there to begin with.
spirituality.com host: I love that idea that no one was born a bully. And we do have a lot of questions. So we’ll start with Susannah from Atlanta, Georgia, who says, “I think my son, who’s 13, may be bullying other children at school. He seems to be more bossy with his friends, and I’ve heard him boasting to them about things he’s said and done to kids in younger grades. I’m worried this may develop into a worse type of behavior, but I want to make sure I approach the situation in the best possible way and help him to see not just that it’s inappropriate behavior, but how he can change. Any ideas?”
Evan: Well, first of all, Susannah, I commend you for recognizing it. That’s the first step, to recognize there may be an issue there that needs to be dealt with. And the next step is definitely, Do not ignore it. You do want to address it.
You mentioned you don’t want to come across the wrong way to your child, certainly. But there is a positive way you can come across. We as parents—and I have two children of my own, you know—part of our responsibility is to educate our children morally and spiritually.
This is an opportunity for some good moral, spiritual lessons to help him grow up into a man who values other people’s individuality, shows them respect, honors them, loves them, and treats them according to the Golden Rule.
This is a teaching moment for you to help this young man. And basically, that’s what the demand is: to teach him the Golden Rule and the value of doing that, the importance of loving others, treating others as you would have them treat you. And that’s the third thing.
You know one of the beliefs with the bullying is that bullies are seeing their victim as someone who is lesser than they—as being inferior or not deserving of respect. That’s not a spiritually right perspective. Everyone is child of God, and everyone is equally loved by God. And we want to learn to love everyone, too, as a child of God.
And so you don’t have to start out with telling him he has a problem we need to correct—that might make him defensive. But you can just look for the teaching moment. Sit down with him and start teaching the Golden Rule, the value of it. And teach him to be more loving and thoughtful and kind toward others.
spirituality.com host: Joanne in Raleigh, North Carolina, is writing about a friend. And she says, “Sometimes I feel as though my best friend can be a bully—not in a violent sense, but she’s really good at pressuring others into taking her side. For example, if we go to see a movie, she always gets people to agree to see what she wants. I love her, and she’s a really nice person; but is there a way to help her be less forceful?”
Evan: I might re-word that question a bit: “Is there a way I can better deal with it?”
When we say, Is there a way I can help her be less forceful, we’re putting the whole issue on her shoulders, you know, like this is all her issue, and if she would only change. Of course, that would be helpful, but Jesus really taught us to start with our own attitude, our own perspective. When it came to enemies, he said, “Love your enemies.”
In this case, you might be really saying, How can I have more courage to stand up and express my feelings and what I would like to do, and not feel like I have to be pushed to the sidelines all the time?
I think part of the answer to that is, again, appreciating your own value and worth as a child of God—that your inspirations and ideas are just as worthy of being aired and heard and accepted as anybody else’s. And you have just as close a connection to God as she does.
Don’t be afraid to live true to the individuality that God gave you, and don’t be afraid to express your thoughts and ideas on different subjects. I think the more we have confidence in who we are as a child of God, the more free we are to express ourselves. And people listen; they pay more attention.
One of the beliefs about being bullied is that people who are bullied have low self-esteem and lack in confidence. They don’t stand up for themselves. And people who do have confidence, they have a certain authority and dominion about themselves that other people respect and listen to.
So, yeah, you have just as much value and worth as she does. And your ideas are just as wonderful as hers are. Don’t be afraid to express them. And see what happens.
spirituality.com host: It’s possible, maybe, that the first time or two, it won’t go so well. But I think persistence can also be a good idea, don’t you?
Evan: Oh, yes. Absolutely. Because sometimes it takes a while for the ideas to sink in and to be grasped. But, know that she is open to other people’s ideas. There’s really only one Mind in this universe, and we all express that one Mind. We express it in different ways because we’re all individual, but every individuality can be traced right back to the one Mind.
So in spiritual fact, she expresses the same Mind you do. You may both have different views of what Mind is expressing at that moment, but there’s still common ground that you share. And that’s what you’re looking for, that common ground. And the more you see her as expressing the same Mind that you do, you’re going to find that common ground, and there’s going to be more chemistry and more understanding.
spirituality.com host: Fred in New Hampshire is asking—this is a little bit more tricky question: “How do you deal differently with bullies when they appear to be a government or organization?”
Evan: Well, prayer always has an effect. We live in a world of thought, and every thought we think is like dropping a pebble into the middle of a pond, and it sends ripples to the outer banks.
So even if we just see ourselves as individuals in a community, in a neighborhood, and things are bothering us around the world, we’re living in a realm of thought where there is no space, there are no miles or distance. There’s just unity and oneness. And our prayer is to see the unity and oneness of the one Mind governing everything that’s going on in this world, including every government and every organization.
So the first place to start is to pray about that government or organization that you’re bothered by, to know that the one Mind that causes good things to happen is in control—of the people in that organization, the managers or the politicians, or whoever is calling the shots there—to see the one Mind in control there, and trust that your prayers are having an effect.
And of course, as we collectively do this around the world, our collective prayers have a grand effect on the outcome of world events and steer them in a better, more positive direction.
So pour in the love, pour in the right thinking, and you will have a beneficial effect.
spirituality.com host: Robert in Connecticut is asking, “One of the managers at work seems to be a real bully. He’s loud and aggressive, and I know even other people at his level talk about how it’s easier to agree with him than to be intimidated. It’s likely I’ll be working with him on an upcoming project, and I’m a little nervous. What should I do to make sure everything goes smoothly?”
Evan: Love is going to work your way through this. And when I say Love, I’m not talking about human love—being nice, pleasant, submissive. I’m talking about a divine power, the power of God himself at work in your life and in your workplace. If I were you, I would see your workplace under the government and control of the one Mind, divine Love, and not under the control of this manager’s human personality.
See the bigger picture. And what happens is—as you are consciously knowing the government of the one Mind, the mind of Love, there in the workplace—everyone will feel the leavening effect of your prayer. They will be affected by it in a positive way, and it will cause better things to happen.
I have a friend who was in the army. He was stationed in Europe, and his platoon sergeant hated his guts. The sergeant just made life miserable for my friend and was in a position to do so because of his rank. And he hated his skin color, he hated his religion, he hated his background. The sergeant would stand in front of my friend and blow cigarette smoke in his face—just all kinds of things that would make life miserable.
Well, this really started to get to my friend. He got mad; he got hateful; he filled up with hate toward this sergeant. And it grew and grew over months. It got to the point where he was taking this hatred home. It was affecting his marriage. He started treating his children poorly. He couldn’t sleep at night. He got sick, and his life was going down the drain.
Finally he realized something had to change. And at one point, he was looking for a book to read and found one on Healing the Greatest Hurt [Matthew Linn, Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1985)]. And he read through the book, and the book said that you need to love your enemy.
It actually had a formula. It said if you pray for your enemy every day for two weeks, you’ll learn to love him like a brother. My friend laughed and said, Oh, right—that’s impossible. But he was desperate, so he decided to give it a try.
So on day one he started praying for his sergeant. He prayed for the next few days. And he said honestly his prayers were not very sincere, and they weren’t very positive.
But he kept sticking to it, and he said about day eight, the light started to break through. And when he was telling me this story, I said, “What did you pray? What were you thinking about the sergeant?”
And he said, “Well, I was blessing him. I learned to bless him. I prayed for his well-being. I prayed for his health to be good, for his marriage to prosper, for his family to do well, for him to succeed in his career. I started blessing him in my prayers.”
And my friend continued, “And I kept this up for ten or 12 days. And then all of a sudden, the hate and the anger and the heaviness started to lift in my thought and go away. And I got to the point where I could honestly forgive him for everything mean that he had done to me over the previous months.”
spirituality.com host: That’s pretty impressive.
Evan: Yeah. And he just let it go. It left his thought. And he said several days after that, he was working in a room somewhere, and the sergeant came into the room and just slapped him on the back and said, “Hey, how are you doing today? What’s up?” And he had never done anything like that ever before.
And my friend turned around in shock. It was like, What happened to you? But their relationship had been utterly transformed. And he actually told the sergeant his whole story, about how he hated him, and read the book and prayed for him. And the sergeant was a bit set back. But from then on, they were pals. They would go out and do things together, and it was completely and totally healed.
But my friend didn’t sit there and agonize over what the sergeant needed to do differently to transform the relationship. He worked on his own thinking and learned to forgive him and to love more.
From my perspective, what he did was, he let divine Love take over his thought. And divine Love took over his thought and took over the relationship and improved it for everyone’s benefit. So try that in your relationship to your manager there, and I predict good things are going to happen.
spirituality.com host: Myra in Wisconsin is asking, “Are there any good Bible stories about bullying? I’d love to have some to share with my Sunday School class.”
Evan: Well, a number of Bible characters were bullied. Look at Daniel. He was quite successful in his work there, and he had some peers who were quite jealous of him and trying to take advantage of him and get rid of him. And they passed a law and all so that Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den. That could have been quite an intimidating situation. And there the lions were, supposedly ready to devour him.
But Daniel didn’t sit there and fret over the lions. I’ve seen a picture where Daniel is standing in the den with the lions behind him, but Daniel’s back is to the lions. And he’s looking up to a little window in the cave up above with light pouring through, and he’s praying—praying to God. And God shut the lions’ mouths.
I think Daniel just loved and loved and loved. No matter how intimidating the outward picture looked, he didn’t let his thinking go where the bullies wanted his thinking to go—into the hate, into the anger, into the resentment, even returning an eye for an eye. He just didn’t go there. He just stayed there with God. He just acknowledged one power at work over his life, and knew if he was doing the right thing with God, God was going to protect him.
And that’s exactly what happened, and he was pulled out of the lion’s den and went on to prosper and succeed. So that’s one example.
spirituality.com host: You raise a good point which is, if you give in to the bully, if you become angry and tense and filled with hatred, then, in a way, even if you don’t do what the bully wants, the bully has won. But if you can, even a tiny bit, keep loving the person in some way—if you can just see one good thing there, that will help, won’t it?
Evan: Absolutely. This brings up another question, and that is, Who is the bully really? Is the bully the other person, or is it the thinking they’re manifesting? Going back to Jesus’ admonition to love your enemies—a lot of people have a hard time with that, because they think that means giving in to your enemies and letting them run roughshod over you—like lying down on the floor and getting tromped on like a piece of carpet.
But that’s not what Jesus meant at all. He was coming from the point of view that your enemy is not the person, and Christian Science explains this quite well in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that the enemy is the hatred, the anger, the ill-intent, the malice, in the thought of the person who’s manifesting that kind of behavior.
The reason we need to love our enemies is because that’s the only way we can protect ourselves from the enemy. If the real enemy is the hatred and the anger, the moment we allow someone else’s hatred and anger to become our hatred and anger, we just lost.
Our enemy just won, and we were defeated. The only way you can prevent that from happening is by taking the opposite approach, which is to love, to love, to love; because love is the only thing that protects us from the harm of hatred and anger.
So that’s what Jesus meant. He meant love in the face of your enemies, so the enemy thought cannot get into your thinking and take you over. Love, love, love. That’s the most powerful remedy there is, really, for anything that a bully could ever throw at us.
spirituality.com host: This question is from someone who says that they are “an interested friend in Chicago.” “How can we help to bring healing to a workplace where it seems that one worker is being scapegoated, and other workers are just relieved that it’s not them being picked on? How can we help break through the bullying corporate culture?”
Evan: That’s an interesting scenario. Know that your prayers do make a difference, and that you’re dealing in a workplace of thought, and thought can always be changed. This concept of “stand up for yourself,” and helping people stand up for themselves—at first, many interpret that as a human will kind of, “Stand up and puff up your chest, and make a bigger physical presence,” maybe.
But I like to think of standing up for yourself, or helping people stand up for themselves, in a spiritual way, and thinking of the self, not as a physical human personal self, but standing up for your spiritual self. And your spiritual self is worthy of honor, respect, appreciation, and decency. It has value and worth equal to everyone else. God loves each and every one of us equally, and we’re all worthy of that love just as much as anyone else.
So if I saw someone being taken advantage of, I would start my prayers knowing that, No, they can’t be taken advantage of, that they’re loved just as much by God as everyone else. There’s one Mind in this workplace here that honors and values their individuality and what they have to offer, just as much as anyone else. God’s law of justice reigns here and can bring out a fair and equitable outcome for everyone involved with the work that we’re doing.
Then also you could target whoever seems to be the abuser in the situation, to know that’s not their right individuality to act and be that way either; that God created them with a mind of love, of respect, honor, decency, appreciation, integrity; and know that God is causing them to be that way. Just pour on the healing balm of love into that situation and see what wonderful things develop.
spirituality.com host: Your comments remind me of what you said earlier that no one is born a bully. And that would be true even for an older person, for somebody who might have even been in the habit of bullying for a while. That still can be changed, can’t it?
Evan: Oh, absolutely. There’s nothing permanent about an evil thought or an evil character or attitude. All of it is added on by the world. And we strip it off with spiritual understanding. Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
With bullies, we want to know the truth about each and every one of our friends, neighbors, and work associates from God’s point of view. That each and every one of us is the image and likeness of Love, of God, and our inner core being has a predisposition to love—to be kind, to be generous, to express the individuality of God, which is loving, Christlike, thoughtful, and kind.
So that’s the demand, when we’re facing a bully or a situation with bullies, to see past the outward picture to what God put there to begin with. The more we can do that, the more that individuality God created is going to come out for all to see.
I can give an example of that. I have a friend who was vacationing in Hawaii—Waikiki Beach, if you’ve ever been there—and she is an independent type. She was out shopping one evening on her own, but going in remote areas of the town—you know, back streets and alleys, and things like that—and she was just walking along minding her own business. She was going down an empty street, and out of nowhere, a man jumps in front of her with a gun, points the gun at her, and demands that she hand over her purse.
My friend looked him right in the eye and said, “Oh, you don’t want to do that. God gives you everything you need. You don’t have to do this.” Well, this really set the man back, and he looked at her like, “What are you talking about, lady?” But honestly, she instantly disarmed him. He dropped his hand to the side, pointed the gun down to the ground. He turned, walked, and left, just like that.
spirituality.com host: Wow. That’s great.
Evan: Now he really took the position of the bully there, and used the gun to intimidate. But she wasn’t intimidated. She is a practicing Christian Scientist, and she knows about these laws of Love, that Love reigns supreme, and that one of the key points in Christian Science is to look for the child of God in everyone—look at everybody from a spiritual point of view.
That’s what she did. She saw past the picture of the potential murderer and thug, and she saw the child of God who responds to love and is loving. She was so clear in her thought about his nature as a child of God that she was able to articulate it right to his face and remind him of it, because he had temporarily forgotten.
And he responded to it. He not only didn’t harm her, he didn’t commit a crime himself. It protected both sides.
spirituality.com host: Now Caroline in Colorado says, “I would love to see my 13-year-old son express his own individuality more, rather than be worried about what other kids think. For example, he’s afraid to wear certain things for fear of being made fun of or even beaten up. What are some thoughts I can share with him to help him not be fearful of expressing his own style and sense of self? Thank you.”
Evan: Well, honestly, the bottom line is really not what clothes he wears or doesn’t wear, or what hairstyle he has or doesn’t have, but just being more comfortable with who he is as a child of God.
You can help him out by, first of all, reminding him who he is as a child of God. Help him understand that he is a complete, whole child of God, that he has his own individuality. We’re all individual. We’re all unique and special in our own ways, but equally precious and loved by God, regardless of what form that individuality is taking.
And so, as he really thinks of himself from a spiritual point of view, he won’t—and you won’t either—be standing in front of the closet thinking, Oh, should I wear this or should I wear that? What’s going to make me more popular? What’s going to make me fit in more?
Because those things really are not what make us fit in. It’s how comfortable we are in our thought with ourselves as the child of God. The more comfort we feel within, the more comfort we express and the more comfortably we work with others.
So, if anything, what you’re really looking for there is to help him warm up to his wholeness and completeness as a child of God, to be happy with that, with what God made him to be, to value it and honor it. I think the outward decisions will just take care of themselves. He’ll find his way with God with those kinds of things. Focus on the spiritual development within.
spirituality.com host: Our next question is from RB in Indiana, who says, “You say you need love to handle bullying. But what happens if the fear you have when facing a bully causes you to not be able to love?” That’s a good question.
Evan: In other words, How do you find the love when you’re so afraid?
spirituality.com host: Right. Like the kid who punched you in the nose. If he came up to you again, would you be too afraid to be able to love him?
Evan: I can relate to that. Well, the love of God—this is what you have going for you—the love of God is more real and more tangible and more concrete than any problem you could ever face. And like the light pierces through the darkness, you can count on the love of God piercing through any dark situation that you’re facing at the moment, and helping you find a way out.
I’m reminded of a little story, an ancient tale from deep in Europe, where there was an ogre who terrorized the local communities. And he was quite a beastly man, a hulking monster, and he had no morals and no values. He just was a very selfish, greed-motivated character.
One day, one of the villagers came racing into his village and said, “The ogre is coming, the ogre is coming!” And everybody raced to their cottages and locked the windows and the doors, and hid in their closets, hoping to high heaven the ogre would just pass through and leave them alone.
Well, that one time, there was a little girl out in the middle of the town square who didn’t know anything about this ogre. And she was very curious. And she was left out there alone, and she thought, Well, who is this ogre guy?
And so she walked out to the front entrance of the little community and looked down the roadway out to the distance. And there the ogre was, marching and thomping and stomping toward the little community, with his club over his head, and just a beastly picture to lay eyes on.
But the little girl was totally unintimidated, totally unafraid, and she walked out to greet the ogre. And the most interesting thing happened. As she went down the road and got closer and closer to the ogre, the ogre started getting smaller and smaller. And she got closer and closer, and he got smaller and smaller, until they came right up to each other, and he was no bigger than the size of a little nymph down there on the ground.
spirituality.com host: Wow.
Evan: And she reached down, put him in the palm of her hand, lifted him up to eye level, looked him in the eye, and said, “Ogre-man, what is your name?” And he said to her, “Fear.” And I just love that story, because she was not afraid of the ogre, and he just shrunk and shrunk and shrunk down to a totally harmless size.
As we face this thing called fear with the understanding that God is all-powerful Love, and that Love can conquer anything, Love starts to take over our thought. And that object that we thought was so monstrous and so huge, just begins to shrink and shrink and shrink in size until we see its nothingness, and we have no more fear of it.
spirituality.com host: That’s amazing. But it shows how when you turn and you face the bully, then the fear goes away.
Evan: That’s right, because there is no power behind the fear. It feels very real, but it’s not. And that’s important to understand from a spiritual perspective: fear does not have power over us—God is the only power, God is the God of Love and has only good in mind for each and every one of us.
And we can depend upon that Love to back us up, to protect us, to guide us and lead us, and navigate our way through these situations that we face, and come out with some type of healing for everybody involved.
spirituality.com host: Marlin, in Boston is asking, “What steps should we take to best educate and prepare our children to be sufficiently secure to insulate themselves from insult and bullying thought and action? Do we perceive the bullies as lacking in self-esteem and resorting to these negative actions to show control over others?” In a way, you’ve answered that a little bit, but maybe you’d like to come at it from a slightly different angle.
Evan: Those three different themes pop up in discussions on how to protect oneself from bullies. And just to test them, I actually asked my kids over the last week, I said, “Do you have bullies in school?”
“Oh, yeah.” They could easily think of bullies.
I said, “Well, do they bully you? Do you ever get bullied by them?”
“Oh, no.”
And I said, “Well, why? What do you do that protects you from being bullied?”
And they said, “Well, you stand up for yourself, and you let them know that you’re not going to be pushed around.”
That was basically what they came up with. But I know there’s a lot more behind that, because every day I work on developing their understanding morally and spiritually to help them know that love is power and hatred is not. And we discuss this often: that when you’re mentally on the side of love, then you have more authority and dominion in your life. And those evil, hateful thoughts are not going to push you around or take advantage of you, because love is power.
To love, hatred is like throwing an ice cube into the sun. How far is the ice cube going to get? It’s not going to get very far, because that sun’s burning so hot it’s going to dissolve it before it can do any damage. That’s the way living a life of love works: the more you’re living a life of love, which is understanding God is Love and is our life, the more you are like that sun. Any evil thoughts people throw at you, are going to dissolve and be completely and totally harmless before they ever reach you.
So my goal in raising my children is to help them see that this is what they are as a child of God, living Love. And there is no power in the bully thought, the evil thought.
But back to the three points that frequently arise on how to protect from bullies. One is to develop friendships. This has been an observation that experts have made, that kids who have a lot of friendships are less susceptible to being bullied.
And I thought, What is the spiritual reason behind that? Well, developing friends is all about love. That’s what develops friendships. And that love comes right from God. So there’s obviously a God-centered thought there at work in their life, and it’s an instant protection.
Another one is this idea, again, of standing up for yourself. But it’s not just human will: I’m going to stand up for myself. That’s what I thought I was doing when I flicked that guy’s ear, and he turned around and punched me in the nose. So, was it Mahatma Gandhi who said, If we follow rule of an eye for an eye, pretty soon everybody in the world’s going to be blind?
That’s not going to work. We have to take the higher road, which is: stand up for your spiritual self, or live true to who you spiritually are as a child of God. Educate your children to be that radiance of Love, to know that Love is all-powerful and can solve any conflict or situation you ever face. And honestly, the bully is not going to be attracted to the thought governed and controlled by divine Love.
spirituality.com host: Here’s a slightly different angle on bullying. This seems to be talking about the idea of sickness as a bully, and the question is from Karen in California. She writes, “What thoughts do you have to help with the continual threat that illness and its results are always waiting to attack and ruin one’s life?”
Evan: That’s a good question, because it’s bringing it up to a mental level. She’s really saying the bully there is the fear of the disease, being intimidated by the prospects of maybe losing your health, and so on. That’s what we talked about earlier: the real bully is never the outward condition that seems to be intimidating. It’s the thinking behind the condition.
And so some of the bully thoughts in the case of disease and sickness are, Oh, you’re going to lose your health, and this is the reason why. The way you respond to that is getting back to the spiritual truth about you as a child of God.
Christian Science is all about this—bringing out our spirituality and understanding what it is, which includes the fact that God created us healthy. That God gave us eternal life to live, and with that eternal life, we have eternal health. You can’t have one without the other. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about that, but life and health come together as a united package. You can’t have eternal life and not have eternal health.
So our goal is to look at ourselves from a spiritual point of view and take possession of what God has given us, and not be intimidated. The threat that disease is real and powerful is no more real than that hate and anger have power.
Again, throwing the ice cube into the sun—it melts before it even gets there. The bullying thought of “disease is real and powerful” thrown into a consciousness of eternal life and eternal health doesn’t get there. It doesn’t reach or touch it. So identify with your true self as a child of God in full possession of eternal life, eternal health, and that should lead you down the route of healing.
spirituality.com host: I’d like to just ask a follow up question, and that is, reports of the flu pandemic, for example, are, in a way, a kind of a bullying that says we all have to become sick because this pandemic is going to develop, isn’t it?
Evan: Oh, and I’ve noticed every day in my local newspaper, there’s a major front-page article on this whole flu pandemic going around now. And I think it’s just unfortunate. It’s like advertisement after advertisement to expect it to happen, and you’re-probably-going-to-get-it kind of thing.
We all need to be collectively praying about this, because it does not need to be this way. That whole flu pandemic can be avoided and prevented through prayer and through spiritual understanding. And you’re right, it’s a way of the world to promote evil, to advertise these contagious beliefs this way. We need to be alert to that and not let ourselves be bullied by that way of thinking—to counter it and say, “No, this is not inevitable, this is not necessary, it is not definite.” We can turn this around with the truth, and free mankind of this imposition on thought.
spirituality.com host: Gloria in Turkey is asking, “Could supposedly harmless joking or teasing be considered a form of bullying?”
Evan: Absolutely. That’s in the definition of bullying: name-calling, teasing. The more I’ve thought and prayed about this whole subject, the more I’ve seen it around in society. I think that it has been accepted as just normal, innocent behavior in the past. But people are becoming much, much more aware of it in recent years, that this kind of behavior is not to be accepted. It’s not normal; it’s not right.
I think the more aware of it we become, the more effective we will be in dealing with it and healing it. Anything that demeans another person is a form of bullying. The cure for it is for us to all be seeing each other as children of God. We’re all equally worthy, equally loved, valued, and treasured. We need to respect and honor our individuality as children of God and not allow this to happen.
spirituality.com host: A camp director in Pennsylvania is asking, “Do you have any ideas for how summer camp counselors could pray about the subject of bullying as they prepare for their work with children in cabins?”
Evan: Sure. A camp counselor is in a unique position, where the campers look up to them, and they respect them for the most part, and listen to what they have to share. So they’re in a position to be sharing views and ideas that help everybody respect each other more, love each other more, and get along with each other better.
I think the first thing is, if we see an example of bullying happen, not just to ignore it, because then we’re really supporting it. If we ignore it, we’re condoning it. We’re saying it’s okay, especially if we’re in a position to correct it.
Look for the Christlike, compassionate way to address the situation, and then use it as a teaching moment for everybody. The key is not to condemn or harshly criticize the bully in your thought, because then you come across as being hateful and angry yourself, which only makes the situation worse.
We really want to love that camper and know that that’s not their individuality as the child of God, that they are loving, thoughtful, unselfish, caring, and generous—just the way God made them. And we can see more of that individuality come out here.
Then help them see—through words and discussion and prayer—that this is who you really are as a child of God. Let’s work on living truer to this expression of Love and let go of the rest.
spirituality.com host: I’d just like to ask a follow up on that. Suppose you do have a camper who is pretty aggressive with other kids, and you talk to them and they say, “Well, I can’t help myself. That’s just the way I am. My individuality is just this way.” What kind of answer can you give them?
Evan: No way. Don’t buy into it for a minute. That’s just another bully argument. So don’t accept it. It has to give, because it’s not true, because it’s not the way he is. That’s not the way God created him. Bullies are not born. They are not. That’s not the way he was created, so don’t buy into it.
It may take a lot of persistence and perseverance with pouring in the healing balm of truth into that individual’s thought, but they will give.
Sometimes problems that we’re facing are like big blocks of ice. But when we put that block of ice out in the hot, warm sun—it’s going to drip. It’s going to melt. Even if it’s drip by drip, it’s going to melt, and it’s going to get smaller. Sometimes we have to approach relationships that way, where improvement comes drip by drip. But don’t give up. Don’t buy into the error. Stick with what you know the spiritual truth is, and you’ll make progress.
spirituality.com host: You were talking about the importance of intervening, and this person who describes himself as “a friend in California” says, “I saw what was clearly a bullying situation a few weeks ago, where a man went after a woman in a restaurant, pulled her out of it, obviously against her will, and held her against an outside wall, obviously berating her.
“Another onlooker came up, and we decided to call the police. It looked like the police may have just given the guy a warning, if anything happened at all. How would you suggest praying about a situation like this when you are a bystander or a friend who is aware of domestic abuse?”
Evan: Pray the thoughts that— if they were thinking those thoughts—they would manifest more of their God-given nature and character.
For example, pray to know that no child of God can be taken advantage of or be put into a position of weakness or vulnerability. Also, pray to know that no child of God can be taken over by thoughts of hatred, anger, selfishness, greed, and narrow-mindedness. That everyone expresses the one Mind which loves, appreciates, values, and respects, just as God does. Just give that picture that you just described a good treatment of truth, because the world needs it.
As we all keep doing that—counteract, specifically reverse, what you saw with the opposite, spiritual truth. Know the truth about God’s nature, the way God created us to begin with, and that what you saw is not a part of man’s individuality as a child of God. It will help your community. It will help that couple to some degree, and anybody who your thought rests upon.
spirituality.com host: In a way, you could say that the fact that the correspondent was able to call for help was evidence of divine Love’s presence, because it interrupted the incident.
Evan: Sure.
spirituality.com host: So that you can affirm that divine Love was actually there.
Evan: Yep. And you were there for a reason, and you had a positive impact, and we’re very grateful for that.
spirituality.com host: This isn’t exactly a question, but I think there’s a question underneath the statement. It’s from Joan in Portland, and she’s saying, “I’ve been bullied as a youngster. Now as an adult, I relive those bullying days in thought. I can still feel the haunting.” And I wonder if we could give her some thoughts to help with that.
Evan: You certainly have the right to be liberated from that past. Mrs. Eddy talks about how “the human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged” [Retrospection and Introspection, p. 22]. That’s what you need to do with your human history, is to expunge the material record of bullying.
That’s going to happen more easily as you really see why you’re not going to be vulnerable to bullying anymore. Work out from today as you know your own value and worth as a child of God, and that divine Love is a protection to you from any evil thought that anybody else could ever send your way, and prevents it from reaching you.
And you’re not going to be intimidated by it anymore, but you’re going to follow through with what you know is the right thing to do, and what God is leading you to do. You’re going to lose your fear of bullying, and that’s going to make it easier to let go of the past, because you begin to see that you’re a new person now.
Through spiritual growth and understanding, you become a new person. The old that was intimidated and maybe abused and misused by others—that never was the real you. This is the real you now—the child of God who can’t be used and abused and misused by others. But you’re loved and valued and protected, and you’re safe.
spirituality.com host: Sarah in Rhode Island is saying, “Sometimes the bullying is totally mental—aggressive thoughts that assail, trying to intimidate us. How would you recommend handling that kind of bullying?”
Evan: Putting on the mind of Christ, where divine Love is in control. The temptations come. Even Jesus Christ was tempted. We have the three temptations in the wilderness. He was out there 40 days praying with God, and then it says the devil came and tempted him with fame and glory and worldly riches and so forth. And finally, Jesus had had it. I mean, this “Get thee hence, Satan.” He just laid down the law there. And Satan left him alone.
So with the same thought, James said, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”, and Paul told his hearers, “Overcome evil with good.” There is a law of good, a law of God, at work on your behalf that enables you to silence those aggressive thoughts in consciousness, and have them be replaced with thoughts of peace and love and harmony.
You have God working on your side. And so just turning to God, claiming that you have the mind of God as your mind, and that it’s filled with harmony, peace, and love, will get you headed in the right direction and start to dissolve that false consciousness.
spirituality.com host: SK in Chicago is asking, “How can we respond if we have been told that we are too assertive, pushy, or that we are perceived as bullying others?” So this is the other side of the discussion now—a person who is being told that they’re a bully.
Evan: Well, the first thing I would do if I was told that is to ask myself, Am I? That’s the first thing. Is this a legitimate statement or not? And be real honest with yourself.
Sometimes we’re accused of things that are just not true. And we need to be able to sort that out. But if it is true, then I would be honest and say, Well, maybe I am, and then work to correct it.
Bullying is really a sinful state of thought, and the first step to destroying sin is to recognize it, and then we can deal with it. If we refuse to recognize it, to admit it, it makes it very difficult to deal with it. So admit it, if it really is true. Then we work to reform and to correct and do away with it.
What we want to strive to do is, “Thy will be done.” What’s God’s will? What does God want me to do? Not, What is my will? What do I want? but what does God want? And of course, one of things God wants is for us to love everybody, to value the good in them, to see them as a child of God, and to see them as just as worthy of love and respect as anybody else or even yourself. Your goal in life is not to get things out of other people, but to acknowledge what God already put there in the first place. That’s a couple of approaches you could take.
spirituality.com host: It’s often difficult to come to grips with the feeling that there’s something wrong with oneself. You know, that you are the person who is at fault, especially if you’ve been feeling really confident, to suddenly have that feeling.
It can be pretty hard to do that self-examination, and to respond to what one discovers without saying, “Oh, no, I’m really a horrible person,” and then kind of go down that road, when what we really are hoping the person will do would be to realize they also are the child of Love, and that that loving nature is really right there within them, isn’t it?
Evan: Absolutely. Everybody is a wonderful person, but we’re all working on letting that wonderfulness come out better.
And this is where humility comes in. Humility is such a valuable asset in praying through these situations, because when we’re humble, we don’t let pride and ego and self-righteousness get in the way of preventing our spiritual progress. When we’re humble, we’re willing to admit our errors, and say, You know, you’re right. I never saw that before, but you’re right, I need to fix that.
We don’t get upset or bothered. We don’t beat ourselves over the head. We just admit it, and underneath it, though, we’re able to admit it and not get upset because we know we’re a wonderful child of God. Every one of us is the wonderful, special, precious, infinitely worthy, child of God. But we all have work to do in letting it come out more.
spirituality.com host: If one was a bully, and daily affirmed, “I am the wonderful child of God.” Well, what is the child of God? Is the child of God someone who stomps over people? Or is the child of God someone who’s kind and patient and things like that?
So to affirm that one is the wonderful child of God, in a way, already puts you in line with God’s nature, and the desire to express that nature, doesn’t it?
Evan: Absolutely. Yes. Correct self-identification is key to healing both sides of this issue, the bully or the bullied. Correct self-identification—how are you identifying yourself?
And of course, the answer is, hopefully, you want to identify yourself in a spiritual way, the way God made you to begin with. That’s the cure for being victimized, and it’s the cure for being the bully, both sides.
Correctly identify yourself as living Love, an expression of God. Living Love is our real individuality, and the more we identify ourselves correctly that way—I am the living expression of divine Love; I’m this wonderful child of God—the more we’re going to live true to that individuality. And the temptation to allow ourselves to be bullied or to bully is going to dissolve and disappear.
spirituality.com host: We’re reaching the end of our time, but we have three questions it would be great if we could answer before we leave. One is from Whispering Oaks in Columbia, Missouri, asking, “How do you handle the problem of a spouse who is prone to shift into anger and accusation when we disagree about something? Can you pray directly for a spouse when they don’t necessarily believe in prayer?”
Evan: Yes. You’re married to your spouse, and in marriage, we are one. So your prayer is for the prosperity of your marriage, which brings your spouse under the umbrella of your prayer. And that’s what you’re really praying for, is unity, harmony, oneness.
Start with the one Mind, that you both reflect the one Mind, God, and therefore share common ground. And your overriding goal in your marriage is not to get your way, whether we buy this color car or that. Those are not the real issues.
The real issue is to be able to care for each other, to understand each other, to listen to each other, to be thoughtful toward each other, to be able to forgive, just to love, love, love. That’s the genius of marriage. So keep that in mind and see where that takes you.
spirituality.com host: Sandy in Stoughton, Massachusetts, is asking, “Are nightmares a form of bullying? If so, how do you reassure a child that they can’t be intimidated by them?”
Evan: Well, it is a form of bullying, trying to bully us into a state of fear, worry, or anxiety. I could call the bully there mortal mind, carnal mind, or the world mind. Children are so receptive to the truth. And the truth is, there is just one Mind filled with thoughts of love, where there are no nightmares.
So remind the child of the truth about their mind—that their mind is just naturally filled with loving thoughts coming from God, angel thoughts that are ministering to that child through the whole night. And so there’s no room for those scary things to come in any longer, because your thought is so filled with good and love and peace and harmony—that’s all you’re going to think about tonight.
spirituality.com host: And finally, Julia in Rochester, New York, is asking—I’m not sure we can answer this one because we don’t have the opportunity to do research on it, but let’s try: “Mrs. Eddy was often intimidated during her life. How did she respond?”
Evan: I suppose she was intimidated. I know people tried to intimidate her, and she probably did feel intimidated. She had some very trying trials. But she learned to respond with love.
There’s an account where she was a little girl in the schoolyard, and all the children were out playing one day. And a lunatic from a local asylum escaped. He came charging into the schoolyard brandishing a club. All the children went shrieking into the schoolhouse in terror. But little Mary was not afraid. She walked up to the lunatic, spoke gently to him, and he left.
Then Sunday, he showed up at church where Mary went to church, and he came down the aisle and stood next to Mary in the pew and sang a hymn. He then allowed himself to be taken back to where he belonged. But that was her response always in life.
Even when she was intimidated, she eventually got to that point where she just looked for the child of God, and just loved them and loved them and loved them, and that love just dissolved the conflict.
spirituality.com host: And certainly as her life went on, she became more and more fearless, even in the face of some really devastating challenges.
Evan: Yes. And that was her teaching—Love is power. God is Love and God is the greatest power in the universe. And so that Love that is God is the greatest power, the most positive force for change for the better, there is. Side with Love. Live Love, and you won’t be pushed around by the bully anymore.
Love is power. And when you’re living Love, you’re backed up by the greatest power there is, and you have nothing to be afraid of.
Citations used in this chat
Science and Health
King James Bible